Q: Let’s start with your background – how’d you end up at the Big 4 firm, and what did you do before that?

A: Sure. I actually started out as an athlete, and played at the college level for a few years before I got a serious injury that ended my career.

Then, I transferred to a smaller and lesser-known school in the Midwest, and got more interested in finance once I knew that being a professional athlete was no longer an option.

The investment banking industry is smaller in the Midwest, but there are still a few local banks there and they were doing a lot of distressed M&A deals for the auto industry, so I started contacting them and asking about internships each week.

After a ton of networking, one bank finally caved in and decided that they needed an intern – so I joined and got to help out with a few live deals there.

As graduation approached, I continued networking and found a few guys who used to work at a very well-known PE firm.

They had just started a lower middle-market fund just for family/small-business investments, and they needed some analysis done on Project Finance-type investments (power plants and such). I volunteered to do the modeling for that, and they were impressed with my work and turned it into a full-time internship.

Since I had so much experience in restructuring, I went to a restructuring group at a Big 4 firm after my internship at the middle-market PE fund. I stayed there for around a year, and then recently moved to a bulge bracket bank.

Q: That’s a great story – before we jump into it in more detail, I think a lot of readers might wonder what it’s like working at a Big 4 firm in their restructuring group.

A: There was definitely a skill set overlap – we did lots of cash flow modeling, presentations to lenders, and distressed M&A deals where we advised the company on selling, restructuring, or bankruptcy options. We also worked with the big auto companies, so you got good exposure to their finance teams.

The financial modeling and deal skills were similar, but there was a big cultural difference because we only worked on 1-2 projects at once and the hours were very, very tame. I only worked on one weekend, and a “late night” was staying to 8 or 9 PM.

Q: Why do you think there’s that cultural difference? Deals are still deals, so I don’t understand how you could “choose” to be less busy if you’re working with Fortune 500 clients all the time.

A: It’s mostly because financial advisory services were a very small part of what the firm did. At an M&A boutique bank, 100% of revenue comes from advisory, but at this Big 4 firm advisory accounted for maybe 2% of revenue.

Their focus was accounting/audit and consulting – they had investment banking and restructuring services, but they were an afterthought next to everything else there.

Q: OK, so it sounds like they consciously chose not to take on as much business as they could have since it wasn’t their core focus.

Obviously you did well moving into banking from restructuring, but what other groups would be good if you wanted to make the Big 4 to IB move?

But I don’t think it’s necessarily the best group all the time because many TAS groups focus on accounting and due diligence, and you may not get exposed to valuation, financial modeling, or other aspects of the deal. They may also spend a lot of time on tasks that bankers don’t care about, such as making sure that working capital requirements are met when a deal closes.

So I would recommend looking at the internal middle-market banks that all Big 4 firms have – they do mostly sell-side advisory, and while it’s not comparable to the experience you’d get at a real bank, it’s closer than most other groups at the Big 4. Here are links to each firm’s internal bank:

Q: So where did you find bankers if not through the usual sources like your alumni database?

A: A couple ways:

High School Contacts – Even though my university had few alumni in finance, there were quite a lot from my high school who worked in the industry.

Random Online Contact – I would just go through LinkedIn and look up bankers in the Midwest and start reaching out them like that.

Cold-Calling/Emailing – This is how I got my first internship. It’s time-consuming and has a low hit rate, but it does work.

Upscale Gyms – I joined a few higher-end gyms in my area and ran into a bunch of financiers there. I met a few bankers, people in private wealth management, management and turnaround consultants, and even a PE Partner like that.

All of that helped, but the most helpful thing for me was always asking, “I’m interviewing with this group / interested in this area – do you know anyone else I could speak with?”

I got tons of referrals with that line at the end of each call or meeting. It sounds very simple, but you’d be surprised at how many people are too afraid to make simple requests in a conversation.

Q: I really like the tip about upscale gyms; it reminds me of Gordon Gekko playing racquetball.

For my Big 4 experience, I focused on the valuation and modeling work and left out anything that was closer to accounting/audit.

Even though I had worked in restructuring there, I was interested in moving to industry or M&A groups in investment banking, so I didn’t want to make myself look too specialized by writing 100% about restructuring or distressed deals.

Q: That makes sense, and it’s great advice for anyone who has worked in a more specialized group and wants to move elsewhere.

What about the interviews themselves? Were they mostly technical or deal experience-focused?

A: They focused a lot on my deal experience – and more my experience at the bank and PE firm rather than in my restructuring group.

There were technical questions, but they were more curious about why certain deals happened, potential complications, and what I thought of the valuation and the process for different companies.

For some of the industry groups, a key question was “Why this industry?” They get a lot of people who don’t know why they want to work with financial institutions or industrial companies or whatever they cover.

A: In my final year of university I had completed a finance course where we valued companies in different industries, so I used that as my “spark” to show them how I got interested at first.

It didn’t work for every industry group, but by using that I could at least talk about my interest in the more common ones, like energy, financial institutions, and industrials.

I also used a few of your industry-specific modeling courses to demonstrate my interest and they were really impressed with that, since hardly anyone else had gone to the effort of completing entire case studies on these companies.

Q: I’m surprised by that one, because we generally tell customers that the industry-specific courses are more helpful once you’re already working – but you found them useful for interviews as well?

It seems like the interview process was straightforward for you, but I’m sure bankers had at least a few “objections” to your background. What were the key issues, and how did you overcome them?

A: Their main concern was that my academic experience looked very spotty.

I had taken a year off after I got my injury back in college, and then had to enroll in another school and ended up missing another semester, so it looked like I had taken forever to graduate and had been to school twice.

Some bankers just focused on that for 100% of the interview – they asked about all my gaps in education and why I had gone to schools they never heard of.

I answered those questions by explaining that for my first 2 years in university, I was practicing constantly, still doing well in school, and working 1-2 part-time jobs at the same time. So I spun a negative into a positive, and pointed out that I was working crazy hours a good portion of the time and could therefore handle the hours of a bulge bracket bank.

And then I also had my previous IB and PE internships, so they weren’t too concerned by the end.

What If? And the Future

Q: Since you had those internships, you had 100% relevant experience when applying to larger banks.

But what advice would you give someone who’s at a Big 4 firm in some other role, like audit? What should they do if they have no transaction experience and want to get into IB?

A: First, get out of audit immediately. Do something – anything – more stimulating.

Most Big 4 firms are fine with internal transfers – it’s often easier than it is at a bank. Sometimes the Partner you’re working for may take it personally, but that depends on your group.

You should reach out to the other group you’re interested in first, contact people there, and make sure they know what you’re interested in doing before you even run the idea by your current boss.

The Big 4 firms all have lots of events and internal mixers where professionals in different areas can meet each other, so it’s easier to get to know other groups than it would be in IB – most people don’t work more than 50-60 hours per week, so they have the time to help you.

You really have no excuse not to move to a group that’s more closely related to banking – I would recommend restructuring, valuation, internal M&A, and TAS as your best options.

Q: It’s interesting to hear that the internal transfer may be easier at Big 4 firms, but I guess the culture is just more relaxed across the board.

So now that you’ve won this bulge bracket offer, what’s next for you? Will you stay at your new bank for some time, or are you thinking about moving to the buy-side?

A: Unlike most other bankers, I’m actually interested in staying in IB for the long-term.

Back when I was interviewing for this role, a number of distressed investment funds also approached me, but I wasn’t interested in PE back then and I’m not interested now, either.

My key issue is that you must put your own money to work to progress in PE.

It’s not just Partners investing the fund’s capital – they also put in their own funds, so a poor investment could wipe out a good chunk of your personal savings.

Yes, the pay ceiling is higher and you could make mind-boggling money – but let’s be honest, at the MD/Partner-level, the average is about the same in both industries. The outliers in PE make far more, but for me the risk isn’t worth it.

About the Author

Brian DeChesare is the Founder of Mergers & Inquisitions and Breaking Into Wall Street. In his spare time, he enjoys memorizing obscure Excel functions, editing resumes, obsessing over TV shows, traveling like a drug dealer, and defeating Sauron.

This is not a new development, Big 4 firms have always had IB teams. These teams are fine, deals are smaller, pay is lower, exit opportunities are not as good, etc. They’re fine, but it’s still better to go a dedicated investment bank, if you can do so, for those reasons.

Hi guys! So I just got offered an internship in commercial real estate at a top 10 bank, though it’s not bulge bracket. My goal is to break into investment banking. Should I take this position and then build experience and then move into IB, or should I decline it to recruit with other firms?

Depends on your other options… if you’re not close to winning interviews/offers anywhere else, take this internship. But if you think something else more relevant could open up in the next few months, wait for that.

Potentially any of them, but restructuring is probably best, followed by transaction services, followed by corporate finance (But this depends heavily on each group’s deal flow and the nature of the work… varies a lot by firm and geography).

Hi Brian, Nicole & team. Thanks for all these super informative posts and responses to queries. Following up on your previous post Brian, just curious to understand why Big 4 Corporate Finance shouldn’t be the 1st choice for eventually landing an IB or elite boutique job? Please advise.

I used to intern in a BIg 4 transaction advisory, and I found that the associate hires (>3 years experience) tend to be 50% people from audit making the jump, and 50% from various back office departments from BBs (Credit Suisse Operations, Barclays Risk, etc.). There are the rare few that jump from other departments in the Big 4 (but audit still form the majority), and the even rarer few ex-IB people who wanted to improve their lifestyle and willing to take the cut in pay for it.

Hi Rechal. I think am qualified to answer this question since I have also made the jump.
Okay, so, I need to know if you have already completed your CA or are you still pursuing it?
Have you ever worked with a big 4? The reason I ask you this is because TS groups like to recruit people who have had big 4 audit experience. I could make the jump right after my CA only because I did my internship with a big 4.
Your chances of making the jump would be the highest at the associate or assistant manager (senior) level.